What will the new year of 2008 mean for Africa's current state?
Africa has been plagued by ongoing religious strife between Muslims and just about everyone else. The genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan is beginning to rival the previous slaughter in Rwanda. The world stands by watching as Arab Muslims kill black Muslims and Christians.
Meanwhile Zimbabwe nears the breaking point. Recent newspaper headlines are instructive: "Zimbabwe running out of cash as inflation soars"; "Torture is Mugabe's election weapon"; "A stricken nation waiting to die." Yet as the London Times lamented, "Robert Mugabe is offered a welcome at the international table," referring to the EU-Africa summit (Dec. 1, 2007). According to UNICEF, the AIDS blight in Zimbabwe alone has left 25 percent of its children—1.1 million—as orphans.
In June of last year Africa was united in refusing an American request for a military headquarters on the African continent. "The Pentagon's plan to create a U.S. military command based in Africa has hit a wall of hostility from governments in the region reluctant to associate themselves with the Bush administration's ‘war on terror' and fearful of American intervention" ( The Guardian, June 25, 2007).
